HIBAPRESS
The Moroccan Organization for Human Rights has called for the abolition of the death penalty from Moroccan penal law, urging a transition from its moratorium, adopted since 1993, to its final abolition, in line with the protection of the right to life and the preservation of human dignity.
The organization stated, in a statement on the occasion of the International Day Against the Death Penalty, which falls on October 10 each year, that Morocco's vote, for the first time, in favor of the UN resolution concerning the global moratorium on the death penalty, on December 17, 2024, constituted a significant human rights step in a process that it hopes will culminate in final legal abolition.
The human rights body, in its statement a copy of which HIBAPRESS received, pointed out that despite Morocco's ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, it has not yet acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant, aiming to abolish the death penalty.
The organization stressed that opposing the death penalty does not mean leniency towards crime or undermining the rights of victims and their families to justice, fairness, and reparation. It considered that protecting society and achieving justice are not contradictory to respecting the right to life, especially in light of the possibility of judicial errors whose consequences cannot be rectified after the execution.
The Moroccan Organization for Human Rights called for Morocco to accede to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and to align penal law with Article 20 of the Moroccan Constitution and relevant international obligations, as well as to convert death sentences into deprivation of liberty penalties.
It also called for strengthening the guarantees of a fair trial and victims' rights, and adopting a penal policy based on reform, reintegration, and respect for human dignity.
The organization considered that the passage of three decades since the moratorium on the death penalty, along with the constitutional entrenchment of the right to life, the recommendations of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission, and Morocco's vote in favor of the global moratorium on the death penalty, all constitute factors supporting the transition to its legal abolition.
